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Georgia Museum to honor black leaders

The Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will play host to the museum’s annual Black History Month dinner at 6 p.m. Feb. 21. The theme is “Harlem Renaissance: A Sampler.”

The event will honor African American leaders Harold Rittenberry and the late Rudolph Byrd.

Rittenberry, an Athens folk artist, will receive the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award for his contribution to the arts in Athens and in the Southeast. A self-taught artist, Rittenberry creates metalwork sculptures that appear throughout the state as well as in the museum’s permanent collection.

The event will posthumously honor Byrd with the Lillian C. Lynch Citation for his contributions to African-American cultural education and service. Byrd worked at Emory University for nearly 20 years. He had dual appointments in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts and the department of African American Studies, where he served as director for a decade. In 2007, he founded the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory, which studies the modern civil rights movement.

Also at the event, chief curator Paul Manoguerra will give a gallery talk on the exhibition “William H. Johnson: An American Modern” at 6 p.m. A catered dinner will follow at 6:45 p.m. with dessert at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $45 per person. Reservations are requested by Feb. 18 and can be made by calling (706) 542-0830.